The Unfolding By Betty Crabtree

Reprint 1/2/25

    One of my favorite verses in the Bible is taken from Galatians 2;20b, “I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Let me share the preceding verses with you from the Message Bible. Galatians 2;16-20, “We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule keeping but

only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know?

    We tried it- and had the best system of rulers the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.”

   Have some of you noticed we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous.

    If I was “trying to be good”, I would be re- building the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan. What actually took place is this; I tried keeping rules and working my head off to

please God and it didn’t work. So I quit being a law man so that I could be GOD’S man. Christ’s life showed me how and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with Him. In- deed I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am  no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me.

   The life you see me living is not mine, but is lived by faith in the Son

of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am not going to go

back on that.